CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ruth's Chris Steak House opens in downtown Cleveland Monday, March 13, with a steak cutting - not a ribbon cutting, a steak cutting. Can't wait to see those scissors. We checked out the restaurant this weekend. Here are seven things to know:

Bring your appetite, your wallet, several friends, and forget calories for the night. We tried a variety of dishes; all are huge and wonderfully prepared. No one is finishing anything here. Bank on leftover lunch. A dining pal finished half of a Cowboy Ribeye - a 22-ounce steak - and it looked like he left a full steak on his plate. An 11-ounce filet is about 2 inches thick. Sides are shareable and tasty. Creamed spinach leans on the light side, not heavy and pasty. Lobster mac and cheese is as decadent as it sounds. You won't be the only one walking out with the iconic red and black doggie bags.

2. Be careful

Steaks and some of the other dishes are served on 500-degree plates with butter sizzling on them. So don't touch. The good thing is entrees stay warm as you eat.

3. Despite the name, it's not just steak

Steak houses often offer seafood as a perfunctory menu option. But at Ruth's Chris, it's intrinsic to the menu. Huge shrimp, meaty crab and generous pieces of lobster cling to a mound of ice in two different-sized seafood towers. Rather than having peppers cooking into crab cakes, they are diced and sprinkled atop the cakes - something that is difficult to find and preferred: The crab can stand on its own, so to speak, and not be covered up with spicy flavors. A thick, deliciously prepared salmon entree with drizzled lemon sauce lay atop a bed of shaved fennel (and stayed warm because of the plates).

4. Ruth's Chris in Cleveland

The downtown Cleveland restaurant is the chain's 153rd in the country. The restaurant - at 200 Public Square in the Huntington Bank building - used to be Frank and Pauly's. The 300-seat restaurant includes two private dining areas - the Euclid Room and the Superior Room, named for its border streets. (One of the private areas looks directly into the kitchen.) It's the second Ruth's Chris in the state, after one in Cincinnati. The one in Eton in Woodmere closed in 2006 after more than nine years in business. Similar restaurants to Ruth's Chris would be Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse and Morton's The Steakhouse.

5. About the name

Started in New Orleans, Ruth's Chris is now based in Winter Park, Florida. Ruth is Ruth Fertel, a single mom who had no restaurant experience before taking a flyer and buying her first steak house in 1965. A decade later, a fire destroyed the original Chris Steak House, and Fertel had to relocate. Contractually, she could not take the name as it was. So she made it "Ruth's Chris Steak House" - "the tongue twister that it is," says Eric Scofield, general manager of the Cleveland restaurant. Fertel, who received a degree at age 19 from Louisiana State University, died in 2002 at age 75.

6. Libations

You can't have a steakhouse without a good wine list. The menu includes about 350 bottles and a more than healthy 30 by-the-glass options. Bottle prices range from many reasonable offerings to a $951 splurge bottle of Penfolds Grange. American classics and exceptional wineries are represented, including some of California's best: Davis Bynum, Patz & Hall, Chateau Montelena and Shafer. For beers, three drafts are currently on the list: North Coast Brewing Co. Scrimshaw Pilsner from California, Jackie O's Mystic Mama India Pale Ale from Athens and Great Lakes Brewing Co. Conway's Irish Ale.

7. Assorted bites

* The restaurant is hard to miss, with its pair of 10-foot stark red entry doors greeting customers on the northwest corner of the building.

* It's open 365 days a year.

* The Cleveland location has 85 staffers plus six on its management team.

* No brunch, no lunch (but private lunches can be booked).

* The restaurant already has scheduled several wine dinners.

* Ambiance is elegant with tall ceilings, and the space is dark but not too dark, which means you can read the menu without shining your iPhone light. It has a classic feel, with Sinatra tunes and the like playing.

* Interesting little touches, for what they are worth: A waiter gave a dark-colored napkin - rather than a white one - to a dining pal wearing dark pants. And warmed napkins are served after seafood dishes, with servers preparing them tableside with lemon for a wash.

* Valet parking is available.

* Like entrees, desserts are generously sized and scrumptious and - like seafood dishes - more than an obligatory afterthought. Cheesecake has a wonderful creamy texture, unlike ones that are often more firm and traditional.